Precious Cargo
by The Seven of Us
Summary: Harry finds a tiny kitten abandoned in a ditch the summer after fourth year, and he needs to save someone. Knowing that the Dursleys would never stand for an unpotty-trained animal, he runs to an old apartment that his parents owned before they died. Oneshot. No plot, fluff, a little bittersweet. By Kendra.


In Little Whinging, there were no ditches. There were gutters made of cement, in which the runoff from rain ran through and dropped into deep wells, where the water was transported somewhere else. Often times, the entrance to the wells, which was a meter long but only six or eight centimeters tall, was clogged by litter and garbage and was cleaned weekly, on Thursday.

Wednesday morning in the summer of 1995 greeted Harry like a slap to the face. The teen lurched upright, gasping softly at the lingering image of Cedric's startled, lifeless face. His scar gave off phantom pains in remembrance of that night.

Per usual after waking up at a ridiculous hour of the morning, he sighed, pulled on ratty trainers, and made his way downstairs, out the front porch, and onto the street. Just before he began to run, there was a pitiful, tiny squeak.

His first thought was an injured rat. But as he replayed the noise, he realized that it belonged to something very young.

Harry squatted, eyes searching for lumps nearby in the half-light, and landed on something that looked like a drowned rat. When he scooted closer, he realized that it was a kitten. Tiny ears, folded still, were smaller than his pinky fingernail. The kitten couldn't have been longer than his hand from nose to tail.

"Oh my God," Harry whispered, picking the kitten up and running through everything he knew about cats. They made a range of sounds, from a small chirp to a yowl that sounded like a human scream. They were mammals and had a higher body temperature than humans. They were born blind and deaf. And that was about it.

He cradled the kitten close to his chest, both of his hands covering the impossibly tiny bit of life in an attempt to keep it warm. It let out a high-pitched mew.

Harry's mind raced. The store had baby formula, he had seen it on his numerous trips there. He didn't know how to keep it warm—he had no heating pad and no magic without his wand except for when he was desperate. He had no knowledge on kittens or baby animals in general.

His train of thought wandered. The Dursleys would never let a small, un-potty trained animal into the house. Dudley would probably kill it if he ever saw it.

He made a snap decision, running back into the house, grabbing one of Petunia's bobby pins and snapping it in half, and picking the lock on the cupboard door. He snatched up his wand, the sweaters Mrs. Weasley had made him, his cloak, his invisbility cloak, two robes, bag of money, and his photo album. Everything else he didn't need immediately or could replace. He wrapped an elastic hair tie around his wrist and slipped his wand between his arm and the tie. Everything else he bundled up into one of his robes and fashioned a crude bag out of it.

Harry called for the Knight Bus, the kitten still cradled in his hand. "Diagon Alley," he instructed curtly, slapping a galleon into the conductor's hand. "Quickly."

"Yes, sir."

It was five in the morning, but Gringotts was open. Harry's regular cloak billowed behind him with how swift he was walking. His hood was up, obscuring his trademark hair and scar. He could see other shadowy figures moving along the cobblestoned streets, mostly moving from Knockturn Alley to Gringotts and back, and Harry stayed well away from them, not speaking, and keeping a wide space between them and him.

He was afraid. But not for himself, for the tiny body that lay cradled against his chest. A fight in half-light and outnumbered would certainly kill the kitten.

When he got to a teller, he slipped his key to the goblin on the counter.

The goblin's beady eyes shot from the key to his customer. With one hand, Harry removed his hood just enough to reveal his eyes and scar.

The teller's eyes dropped to the protective hand that covered the kitten. Wordlessly, Harry revealed the newborn kitten, and the goblin's eyes widened.

"Come."

Harry followed.

"Why are you here? The Headmaster told us that you would not come into our bank until the end of summer."

"The kitten. The people I live with would kill it before I would be able to try to raise it. I have no money to care for it, and I have no knowledge on how I would in the first place."

"You have a townhouse in London and a cottage in Romania," the goblin said curtly.

No other words were spoken as Harry gathered the address and key to the townhouse and converted a bit of money to pounds.

Out of Diagon Alley, Harry hailed a taxi. "Cartwight Gardens."

The drive took about half an hour. Surveying the line of brick flats, Harry guessed that it was meant for the lower middle class people. It was well-kept and orderly, but not particularly fancy. When he got to his apartment, he glanced over it. Dusty and dirty and the fridge had a forest growing out of it, but Harry could remedy all of those fairly easily.

He opened the windows to air it out a bit and then stopped and closed his eyes. He took a deep breath, and then stated firmly, " _Scourgify_."

The dust mostly vanished in the room, and the rest of it, stirred by Harry's magic, was quickly ushered out the window by a strong breeze.

Harry repeated the sequence for all of the rooms until the small area was clean, and then did the same for the fridge.

As he was doing it, he gave the flat a glance over. There was a bed, a dresser, and a nightstand. The kitchen had some knives, a set of cutlery, a set of dishes, and a cutting board. The bathroom had a scrubber, six toothbrushes that Harry promptly discarded, and soap. Essentially, it was the bare basics. He wasn't quite sure why his parents rented this place. It didn't look as if they had lived here.

After rummaging around, Harry found a towel, which he wrapped around the kitten, so that when it decided that it needed the bathroom it wouldn't go all over him.

Flat now livable, Harry set out to find the nearest store. It was still early, only seven or so, and Harry wanted to have that formula ready when the kitten stirred again, as well as a box and a heating pad so that he didn't run the risk of crushing the kitten while in a nightmare.

Once he found a store, he bought two pairs of pants, four shirts, and a new pair of trainers, as well as the necessities of shampoo, toothbrush and toothpaste, and food. The formula and heating pad were quickly added.

Driving a buggy one-handed, Harry discovered, was extremely hard. Shopping was even harder with the kids and adults alike clamouring around him to get a look at the kitten. The concentrated noise had attracted one of the employees, who (rather politely) told the crowd to get lost. Then he turned to Harry, scrutinized the tiny bit of fluff in his hands, and told Harry that he would drive the buggy.

Harry had just about collapsed from relief.

"Your Mum send you here?" the employee asked.

Harry was startled. Momentarily, he'd forgotten that he was fourteen and looked twelve. He'd been pretty much independent for so long that he forgot his age sometimes.

"Yeah," he said. "We just moved, and she didn't want me and the kitten underfoot."

"So she sent you to get groceries," the man finished. "Nice. Where'd you find her?"

"Her?" Harry echoed.

"The kitten. Looks like a she to me."

Harry nodded. "Found her on the side of the road this morning. I'm guessing that she's a newborn that her mother abandoned."

"She might be a runt," the man warned. "The mother might have abandoned her for a reason. She might not live."

Harry smiled. "We're a matched pair, I guess."

The man raised an eyebrow in a silent query.

"I wasn't supposed to live to my second birthday. I turn fifteen this July."

He grinned and clapped Harry on the back. "Good on you, mate."

Harry checked out, thanked the man profusely, and left, shrinking all but the heating pad out of sight.

* * *

The first night was a harrowing experience. Little Athena—for the tiny tabby reminded him of his Professor, and was certainly a fighter—was teetering on the edge of death from cold. Ninety-four degrees, was his mantra that night. Her body temperature, and thus, her surroundings, could not fall below ninety-four degrees, or she would die within hours. Harry rubbed her frequently with a warm towel, cradled her against his chest with the heating pad over her. The sun rose again, over twenty-four hours since he had found her on the side of the road, and Athena still breathed on, her eyes closed and ears folded, unaware of the world around her.

Hedwig had found the flat within hours of Harry's being there, and was summarily unhelpful in caring for the kitten. Harry had pleaded with her to allow him the kitten, and Hedwig had given him a _look_ , and Harry had promised that she would be his only and favorite owl.

The second day in the flat, Harry went back to the Alley. He needed pretty much everything—a trunk, supplies for school, and books.

He carefully disguised himself with colored contacts and a bandana before heading out. A brown-eyed, glasses-less Harry Potter ventured into the hustle and bustle of Diagon Alley, carefully protecting his precious bundle.

"Harry Potter!"

Despite his urge to stiffen, he kept on walking as if that was not his name. Alex Brown, he decided. Completely unaffiliated with either of his parents.

He was grabbed by the shoulder and wrenched around, and his brown eyes narrowed, grabbing the man's wrist and twisting his arm around his back and shoving his attacker to the floor. One hand still covered Athena, and his knees pinned the man's arms to the ground.

"Harry!" the man under him gasped out.

Harry took a moment, blinking as if he had come out of a daze. "I am," he said slowly, affecting his accent so it sounded more American than British, " _not_ Harry."

The man—Remus Lupin, Harry now realized—was shocked into stillness. "But—but!"

"I am not Harry Potter," Harry Potter said. "And I am _sick_ and _tired_ of being mistaken for this gods-forsaken Potter!"

There was a ring of people around him and the sprawled werewolf.

Abruptly, Harry rose, stepping over Remus's waist, hand still curled over Athena protectively, and made his way through the crowd to Flourish and Blotts.

* * *

Harry had gotten what he needed to and escaped from Diagon Alley. The moment he got back to the flat, he all but collapsed onto the bed.

Athena woke, mewing, and Harry fed her, somehow getting more _on_ her than _in_ her, and then he had bathed her gently with a wet towel.

Afterwards, Harry laid down on the bed, heating pad draped across his chest, a towel over that, and Athena wiggling her way around. One of his new books was propped up on his stomach.

Eventually, Athena went back to sleep, and Harry covered her up with the towel and continued reading.

" _Preck,_ " Hedwig grumbled from her perch next to Harry's bed.

"She's a baby, Hedwig. Babies require a lot of attention," Harry said gently, stroking her breast feathers.

Hedwig made a sound that was very similar to a raspberry, which was quite amazing, considering that she didn't have the lips required for the sound.

"Please, Hedwig," Harry pleaded. "There's no reason to be jealous. You're my first gift, and you survived the Dursleys, and you were there when no one else was. Please let me save this kitten."

 _I need someone to save, right now._

* * *

Ninety-four degrees became his mantra for the first three weeks of Athena's life. Any lower than ninety-four degrees and she would die—this tiny little bundle of helpless life would be snuffed out like a candle's flame.

He slept with her on his chest, under a heating pad on low. He used a variation of the Body-Bind on himself when he slept, to avoid throwing either the pad or her off his chest. She woke him all the time, making her high-pitched mewing for food, or water, or something—even just a low grumble of a response, his chest vibrating, something to let her know that she was not alone.

Once a little more awake, he understood her perfectly.

He couldn't forget those times, huddled in the cupboard under the stairs, and praying for someone out there to come and save him, or even just let him know that they were there.

Athena was tiny. It was a fact of her life, when she was no bigger than the length of his hand from the tip of her nose to the tip of her tail. It constantly amazed him how fragile she seemed, and yet how much of a fighter she was during that first week, when he stayed up more than once late into the night, prepared to do the cat version of CPR at a moment's notice. He watched her closely as she fought for every breath, her lack of a mother and siblings for food and warmth taking their toll on her impossibly tiny body, despite Harry's best attempts.

Three weeks passed, and at three in the morning, when she squirmed awake, he was startled to see large blue eyes looking down at him. He knew that her sight was just as bad as his own at the moment, but her eyes had finally opened. Her legs were still unsteady as she toddled all over his chest and lap, with tiny pins that most people called claws clinging to his shirt and (occasionally) the skin underneath.

It didn't stop her from playing, pouncing on drumming fingers, dragging bathrobe ties, dangling headphones, or skittering dust bunny. Harry had laughed himself sick, a wide grin stretched across is face as the kitten darted across the kitchen's slick tile floor with absolutely no traction, going after his bathrobe tie, pounced on it, skidded across the floor because of her momentum, and went tumbling into her water bowl, tipping it over and soaking herself with a loud yowl of protest.

That didn't mean that there weren't bad times. Harry often woke himself, Hedwig, and Athena, screaming in denial as that terrible green light impacted Cedric's chest, the feelings of anger and sorrow and panic magnified by the spell he placed on himself to avoid crushing Athena. It often took him several minutes to calm down enough to take off his own spell and then curl into the fetal position with Hedwig on his pillow and preening his hair and Athena purring frantically, watching his face with eyes like saucers and a tail like a bottle brush.

He didn't mean to scare her so badly, but there was nothing he could do about it.

After those first three weeks, things grew into a routine. He would get up early—"early" being counted as anywhere from three to six in the morning—and read until a respectable hour. With both his animals being nocturnal, those early hours of the morning were often the most interesting of the day. Hedwig often sat on his headboard and read over his shoulder, something that absolutely flabbergasted him the first time she pecked his head harshly when he turned a page too soon. Then he was giggling slightly hysterically and sending Hermione a letter that she had corrupted his owl.

Athena, however, was one wired little kitten in the early mornings, pouncing on his twitching toes under the covers. Harry played a game with her as she sat on his legs, butt wiggling madly, twitching his toes slowly, deliberately, until she couldn't stand the movement anymore and pounced, claws sinking into the covers and gnawing on his blanket-covered toes and growling playfully. Then the toes that she was playing with would still, and he would start the process all over again on his other foot. She tired quickly though; her body was not yet up to moving so much from her desperate struggle for life for her first few weeks.

After about five weeks, Harry began weaning Athena off the formula as she grew teeth. He kept a bowl of dry cat food out constantly, but made the formula and soaked the dry kitten food in it, turning it to mush and began feeding that to her. Then he cut the formula out altogether when he ran out, just using straight water and mushed up kitten food.

Athena was _not_ happy with the change, and stuck up her nose and walked off quite a few times, her little tail waving in the air in disgust and providing him with a good view of her rear. Harry proved to be more stubborn than the cat, and calmly waited her out—it was dry, crunchy kitten food or wet, mushy kitten food. Athena eventually, reluctantly drank the mashed kitten food, and made her displeasure clear by attacking his bare feet—with _all_ of her claws extended. Harry managed to quickly curb that behavior by dumping the water he had been holding in preparation to boil tea on her head. Then he turned on the heating pad and cleaned up the water all over the kitchen floor, not batting an eye as Athena shook off most of the water and then groomed herself dry and sulked on the heating pad on the bed for the rest of the day.

Hedwig, of course, watched the interactions with great amusement.

Then, after about a week of that, he changed her diet again. He began giving her soaked, but not mashed, kitten food on a plate. She eyed the plate like one might a snake, and Harry ended up using his finger to convince her that it was not going to devour her.

(Hedwig gave off the feeling that if she could have rolled her eyes, she would have. Harry swiftly responded with two words: Owl Pellets, the owl treat that she had refused to eat for almost a year because the name sounded much like the things that she hacked up after meals.)

As she got used to the plate (and the food), she often came looking for him when she got hungry, mewing piteously as she did her best to trip him, winding her way in and out of his legs. More than once, Harry did actually fall and barely catch himself on the counter, earning Athena glares from both human and owl. Eventually, he set her on the counter so that she could watch ( _supervise imperiously_ , he laughed to Ron in one letter) him make her food.

"I should have named you Trouble," he grumbled to the kitten on those occasions, just before he scooped her up and dumped her unceremoniously on the counter.

But when he spotted her munching on dry kitten food, he immediately rewarded her with several toy mice and a ball with a noisy bell in it, scooping the kitten up and twirling her around, whooping with success.

Little Athena was very bewildered with her human's actions, and when Harry set her down again, she staggered off to inspect the new items closely.

A couple of weeks before school expected to start, he woke one morning and Athena's eyes were suddenly as green as his own, staring back at him curiously as he gawked at the sudden color change. He knew that cat's eyes changed color sometime after they got their sight in the first few weeks but he wasn't expecting it to be so sudden!

Hedwig made a noise that sounded suspiciously like an owlish snigger.

* * *

Eight weeks, Harry thought, dazed, on the twenty-sixth of August, less than a week until Harry went back to Hogwarts.

Per usual, Harry got his Hogwarts letter, detailing the things he would have to get. Harry stopped by Gringotts and got some more money out of his account, noting distantly that he'd been getting money out of this account for five years and yet he'd only hardly made a small dent.

September first rolled around, and he made a decision.

His friends piled into the compartment, talking and laughing.

"Ginny," he called over the noise. "I have a belated birthday present for you. I know you don't have a pet yet, and I can't have two."

The rest of his friends looked at him quizzically. In response, he leaned forward, putting his hand behind his back and bringing Athena around to the front. She blinked sleepily at the mass of unfamiliar faces.

"I named her Athena," he said gently handing his friend the kitten. "She's eight weeks old and the reason why I ran away from the Dursleys. She was only a couple of hours old when I got her."

"Harry," Hermione breathed, looking at the brilliant green eyes. "How did you…"

"A lot of patience, a lot of research, and a lot of late nights," Harry said softly, watching the kitten as she batted at Ginny's long red hair. "She was the runt of the litter, I'm guessing. The vet certainly didn't expect her to live past the first day, let alone eight weeks. But she's a fighter. It's why I named her Athena." He smirked. "And she was a tabby. It made sense to name her Minerva's Greek counterpart."

"I'm _not_ telling McGonagall that," Ginny giggled.

The compartment burst into laughter.

* * *

 _ **July 30**_ _ **th**_ _ **, 2015—Real Life—The Deep South, USA**_

A tall woman with curly black hair and a large bust drove up to a brick house with a magnolia tree in front of it. Stuffed in her low necked shirt was—seemingly—a wadded up towel. The door opened before she could knock, greeted by an older woman, streaks of white and silver taking over her formerly black hair.

"I'm so glad you answered on Facebook," the curly haired woman said. "I just found her on the road a couple hours ago, thought it was a rat, actually. Learned a couple of things that I never wanted to learn, too, when the vet cut her from the placenta."

A teenage girl appeared from deeper within the house, long curly black hair tied back into a tight braid. Some curls sprung loose around her face, giving her a slightly maniacal look.

"Where's the kitten?" she said, bewildered at the lack of a carrier.

"I needed to keep her warm," the curly haired woman said, reaching for the towel stuffed down her shirt. Carefully—much too carefully for there to only be a towel—she pulled the towel from her bosom and showed the oh-so-very tiny kitten to the two women.

"Oh my god," the girl breathed, taking the towel in slightly trembling hands. She opened the towel a bit, showing the six-inch-long body as the kitten mewed at being exposed to the cool air of the house. Tiny, blind, deaf, and utterly helpless.

"We'll take her to Emma," the older woman assured the curly haired woman.

The girl shot a startled look at her grandmother. Emma was their foster cat—she was a mother with her two kittens, which they had named Char and Coal. The family of three were all pure black, resulting in the kittens' names.

"She's probably the runt," the woman said. "I waited to see if I could find the mother, but she's not shown up. She probably dumped the little one on the pavement and continued on her way with her other kittens."

"We've saved runts before," the girl said confidently, thinking of their cat Lily, who had come to them malnourished and sick and hadn't been expected to live. She was now nine years old and healthy as the next cat in line.

"Thank you," the curly haired woman later said to both of them as she was leaving. "I didn't want to take her to the pound or the ASPCA—they would have put her down. She's too young for them to take care of."

"Not a problem," the older woman said firmly. "We can take care of her."

* * *

The girl watched closely as she left Athena in her towel on the floor, coaxing the stubborn mother over to see the kitten. The black cat pawed at the towel surrounding the kitten, licking her face.

For an hour, it was okay, if a bit worrying. Emma seemed more interested in the girl than any of the kittens. Then when Emma went back to Athena—for they had named her Athena, the tiniest kitten any of them had ever seen or handled since The Boys over twenty years before and their little fighter—and scooped her up by the nape of her neck. The girl wasn't worried, this was a normal behavior for mother cats for them to move their young. But when Emma began shaking her head with Athena in her mouth, the girl grabbed the kitten from the mother who was trying to break the kitten's neck.

"No! No, _bad_ girl!" the girl yelled. She would have slapped Emma, but both hands cradled the kitten to her chest.

* * *

When her mother got up at six in the evening to go to work—she worked the swing shift at her job—she was startled to see her daughter lying on the couch reading a book. She wasn't startled at her daughter lying on the couch, or at her reading a book, but was most definitely startled at her daughter with a towel stuffed down her bra, a low-necked Harry Potter themed shirt covering that.

The girl grinned mischievously at her mother when she asked why she had a towel down her shirt. "I wanted bigger boobs, of course," she replied cheekily. Her grandmother laughed loudly from the computer. Her mother raised an eyebrow.

"No, actually, we got another kitten," the girl's grandmother corrected, amusement lining her face. "She's tiny enough to need the warmth of another body, but Emma tried to kill her."

The girl's mother peered at the tiny head sticking out of the towel, soundly sleeping. Of course, the kitten could have been awake, but with her eyes still tightly shut, no one would have known the difference unless the kitten made noise.

The girl told her mother about the formula that she had already fed the kitten a bit of, and that she needed to be kept warmer than ninety-four degrees.

The mother smiled a bit, shaking her head. "Have fun, you two," she said as she began to get ready for work.

* * *

When she went back into the kitten room to check on Emma and her kittens—fill up the food and water bowls and buss the litterbox—Emma was going crazy, trying to get out of the room.

"No," the girl said coldly.

Huge green eyes looked at the girl pleadingly.

"No," she repeated, her entire bearing frosty towards the cat.

* * *

When it came time to sleep, they put Athena in a shoebox, lining it with batting and putting a heating pad underneath it.

They set the box on her grandmother's queen bed, so that she could get to Athena quickly if the kitten cried in the night.

They both went to bed at ten o'clock.

* * *

 _ **July 31**_ _ **st**_ _ **, 2015—Real Life—The Deep South, USA**_

The girl stirred at her mother's insistent voice and checked the time—a little before nine. Her mother called her name again. She buried her head under the pillow, shutting her mother out. It was the middle of the summer and her dentist appointment was next week. Why was she being woken up?

Her memories flooded back from the previous night—Athena, worry that she wouldn't be warm enough with just a shoebox, batting, and a heating pad on low. Worry that she wouldn't make the night, because she was tinier than even Lily when she had arrived.

The girl's head came flying from under the pillow. "How's—" She saw her mother's face.

"Honey," her mother said, grasping her hand and rubbing her knuckles. "Athena didn't make the night. I found your grandmother still sitting with her when I came home at four."

The girl bowed her head, hitting it on the bed's railing. Her face crumpled at the thought of the tiny bundle of life, and she wept for the only kitten that they couldn't save.

* * *

She met her grandmother outside her bedroom. The older woman seemed even older than she normally did, her eyes bloodshot and her hair in disarray. The girl had yet to wipe her cheeks from her tears and she buried her face in her grandmother's shoulder.

"We have to show Emma," she said eventually, surprised at how even her voice was. "She was going crazy last night."

When she saw the still, tiny body of Athena, tears sprang once more into her eyes. She cradled the precious bundle to her chest, her throat tight as she made her way to the kitten room.

The girl was immediately greeted by Emma, and her grandmother stood at the door as the lithe black cat followed the girl, curious about the girl's emotional state and the tiny bundle in her hands. The girl set the kitten's body on the floor for Emma to inspect, and she started cry again as the mother cat sniffed and licked and sniffed and licked some more, before she determined that the kitten was dead and, with all the evolution of the species, walked away, seemingly uncaring.

She scooped up the body once more, before making her way outside, and tears ran down her face at where her mother had dug the small hole for the kitten—right in between The Boys.

Her mother grasped her shoulder as she stood again from laying Athena in the hole. "She had a little bit of time, and she was _ours_."

The girl bit her cheek to stop herself from letting out a sob.

Her mother carefully covered up the hole again, with Athena inside.

"Right between The Boys," she murmured. "Twister would have loved to mother her."

Her grandmother smiled waterily. "Yes, he would have."

* * *

 _ **RIP, Athena. I wish that I could have played games with you and dealt with your temper tantrums and laughed myself sick as you careened around the corner to pounce on some unsuspecting mouse, toe, cat tail, piece of food, or dust bunny, and put up with your caterwauls as we took you to the vet and watched you grow and learn and cause mischief and grow old, but some things will never happen, I guess. I hope you're happy, wherever you might be. Warm and loved.**_

* * *

 **Kendra: This is possibly the hardest thing I've ever written. Athena was actually real, and while I didn't get to see her, "The Girl" is one of my best friends and she was broken up over Athena's death for months. The above section was actually written by "The Girl" and she does live with her mother and grandmother. The curly haired woman was one of her mother's coworkers. They have had hundreds of kittens go through their house-they used to foster kittens, and still do sometimes. I think that she and her family are the only people that I know that can be irritated by or discipline a cute, mischievous kitten, let alone two or three hundred of them over the course of her life. "The Boys" were two flame-point Siamese cats that were brothers and her grandmother's. They died when "The Girl" was twelve, but she had grown up around them and they were seventeen when they died.**

 **Anyway.**

 **Kittens really do need siblings or their mother because human body heat is several degrees lower than a cat's, and ninety-four degrees really is the cut-off point for a kitten. The weaning process described by Harry and the problems he described having with Athena were also problems that "The Girl" and her family had with Char and Coal. The game with the toes is something my own cat does and he's almost six. (I think he doesn't know that he grew out of kittenhood years ago.) Pouncing on anything that might possibly move is classic cat, and I remembered "The Girl" telling me a story about how one of their cats (at nine years old, so definitely _not_ a kitten) pounced on a trailing strip of fabric when her grandmother's sewing guild came over to quilt. The discipline of dumping water on a cat is something my friend often uses on their cats and kittens alike, although they normally use a squirt gun to both avoid the massive mess and to be able get them from a distance. I honestly am afraid if my friend ever needs to shoot an actual gun, because I've seen her shoot water into a cat's ear while both she and the cat were moving at thirty paces. XD**

 **Also, while I am not going to post a picture initially, if I get five or more reviews of a picture of Athena tucked into her towel (you won't see much, only her head), I will post the picture.**

 **Thank you for reading, and if you have any questions on something that I didn't clarify on, I will either reply via PM or add onto this later.**


End file.
